The Life and Times of an old ex deatheater
by galleena
Summary: When the Dark Lord fell his followers were rounded up and sent to Azkaban. Except a select few must live life without magic. That means no potions, no spells and, worst of all, no Mrs. Scower's All Purpose Magical Mess Remover.
1. Chapter 1

**The Epic**

**Chapter One**

0-0-0

They didn't believe him. Harry Potter sat across the table, clutching Dumbledore's last instructions in his hands. Snape had known they would never trust him but Dumbledore the old, dead, fool had truly believed that they would accept Snape as having acted on his (Dumbledore's) orders.

It was time to leave, before things got nasty.

The Order watched silently as Snape's billowing robes whipped around the corner for what, they hoped, would be the last time.

0-0-0

_Harry found and destroyed the last Horcruxes and defeated Lord Voldemort during what the wizarding world now refers to as 'The Final Battle'. Unfortunately the battle cost Harry his magical strength and as he lay powerless Lucius Malfoy was able to curse him. Harry died instantly as did Ginny Weasley beside him._

_Ron Weasley, driven mad by grief and anguish set out to track Malfoy Sr. down and kill him. Hermione Granger, distraught at losing her three best friends, dropped out of Auror training to study Chemistry with Potions at Cambridge University._

_Most of Voldemort's followers were rounded up and locked away. A select few were allowed to stay free on the proviso that they live the rest of their lives as Muggles and never ever do magic again. Severus Snape was one such wizard. He was one of the "lucky" ones._

0-0-0

It was raining outside Snape's house, as it often did on the coast of Wales in winter. Not that Snape noticed or even knew this because he was, at that moment, brewing an illegal sleeping draught in his hidden underground dungeon. Or rather, he was attempting to brew one.

Snape scowled heavily into the blue, gloopy, soup-like concoction in his cauldron. In his former life as a teacher he would have given any student who made such a mess straight detention, but now he had only himself to blame.

_Damn lacewing flies! _ He'd known they were over-ripe but he had no choice other than to use them. Decent potion ingredients were hard to come by, especially when his only willing dealer was Mundungus Fletcher. _Damn that thief! How dare he sell Snape sub-standard goods?_ _They were meant to have a deal_.

Mundungus took the potions Snape brewed in secret and sold them on the black market, keeping 54 of the profits for himself, buying the ingredients for next month's potions with the rest and giving whatever money was left to Snape as payment. There was generally very little left over. In fact there was far less left over than there should be _even_ if Mundungus had bought from a top-line apothecary which he hadn't. Obviously the filthy mongrel was lining his own back pockets while spitting into Snape's. Snape brooded over his possible choice of tongue-biting words for when they met as he watched the last of his useless sleeping draught swirl lumpily down the sink.

Far above his door bell clanged loudly. That would be Mundungus now. Snape composed his face, scrubbed the last of the blue from his cauldron and moved smoothly up the stairs to open the door.

0-0-0

It was not Mundungus. Snape hadn't bothered to check before he threw the door open so it came as quite a shock to him when, instead of Dung's dirty overcoat he saw two sleek and very wet other people on his doorstep. They were so out of context that it took him a moment to recognise them, but there was no mistaking that hair.

Narcissa and Draco Malfoy fell in the door.

Draco was breathing heavily and staggering under the weight of his mother who appeared to be unconscious. He was pale, almost blue, shivering and drenched through from the freezing-sleety rain outside. Both his arms were wrapped around his mother who, on a closer look, was eerily silver and flushed at the same time.

"Professor" Draco croaked, and coughed "Professor you have to help her! She's ill"

Snape bit back a snide comment on this very obvious piece of information (he'd somewhat overcome the initial shock of their ghost-like arrival) and moved briskly to take Narcissa from Draco's grasp. He carried her into the warmest room in his house, the kitchen, and laid her rag-doll body on the table. Draco followed.

Snape looked Narcissa over. No visible sign of a curse that might do this to her. No outward animal bites, though there might be one under her clothes somewhere. No pock-marks to suggest re-occurring illness. Nothing really to suggest why she might be unconscious, but Draco was speaking again.

"I brought this, I found it beside her and I thought it might help…"

He held a tiny crystal vial and handed it to Snape, who lifted off its stopper and wafted it under his nose cautiously. "Aging potion" he said in surprise "Why was she taking it?"

Draco shrugged, as surprised as Snape. Snape turned the little bottle over in his hands. Beautiful workmanship. Probably unbreakable. Style… maybe twenty years old? Yes, there was the manufactured date, nineteen years ago. Definitely a custom-made piece. Forty-five, maybe fifty millilitre capacity. Forty-five millilitres would provide enough aging potion to age a person, maybe six years? Snape caught Draco staring at him.

"Your mother will be fine. She's doubtless withdrawing from twenty years of aging potion"

He lifted one of Narcissa's blue-white hands to check her pulse and was unsurprised to find her arm deathly cold. He noticed that Draco too was shivering and that a pool of icy water had dripped onto the kitchen floor from his cloak.

"Stay here and get rid of those wet clothes. I'm going to go find you both some robes"

Snape left the room and went up two flights of stairs to his parents' room. He hadn't been in their part of the house for years. His father's muggle clothes still hung in the big cupboard and his mother's in the walk in wardrobe. Snape, not wishing to linger, pulled out a nightie from his mother's chest-of drawers and tugged a shirt and drainpipe trousers from his father's.

By the time he got back to the kitchen Draco had stripped to his underclothes and had taken off the wettest of Narcissa's garments. He pulled on the trousers and top appreciatively and draped his mother's nightie over a chair. Snape left the room long enough for Draco to finish undressing Narcissa and to pull the nightdress on over her head.

Together they carried her limp form up the stairs to a guest room. Snape discreetly checked the mattress for insects and made up the bed with musty bedclothes he found in a dank airing closet. _Must remember to spring-clean everything sometime._ Together they heaved Narcissa into the bed where Draco tucked her in. He seemed reluctant to leave the room until Snape set up the ancient monitoring system his own mother had used when he was a baby. It would alert them to any difficulties Narcissa may be having and would sound an alarm if anything drastic happened, like if she got up and started to walk about. The ministry officials who seized his magical possessions had overlooked it in their haste.

Snape led Draco to his sitting room, the same one where barely three years earlier Narcissa had begged him to save her son. It was ironic but still Snape didn't allow himself the luxury of a small smirk. Instead he told Draco to sit in an armchair opposite the fire and offered the boy – well, man really – some elf-wine. His last bottle of it actually. Thankfully Draco declined, saying he wasn't overly fond of drinking anymore. Snape made them tea instead.

He had five or six different types of tea in his cupboard and picked out Classic Blend as the best to settle nerves. It should be served with Rich Tea biscuits, MacVites brand preferably, and they had to be the long thin ones instead of the round ones because round ones don't fit the cup properly. But Snape hadn't been paid yet, nor had he particularly wanted to face the weather outside to go shopping so there weren't any biscuits. Not even the round ones. He decided he'd make Earl Grey instead.

Snape allowed his mind to wander as the kettle boiled. The Malfoys, he knew, had been placed under the same magical restrictions as he, Snape, had been. That meant they were allowed no magic, no spells, no magical equipment and no potions whatsoever. Violation of this article would result in immediate imprisonment. The reason Draco risked life and limb to reach Snape's house when he could have gone to a nearby healers was becoming clearer. Snape was a man with significant healing abilities who would (probably) not turn them over to the authorities. What Snape wanted to know was how Malfoy got here without violating said law. He put the question to him as he walked back into the sitting room.

There was an embarrassed pause in which Malfoy sipped his hot tea.

"I drove" he muttered eventually.

Snape did smirk this time. "You drove? A Muggle car? Why, Draco, I didn't think you had it in you."

"I had to drive!" Malfoy said defensively. "There was no other way to get here. I drove for three hours straight and then we had to abandon the car because the wind blew us off the road. I had no choice. I carried mother six miles up the valley road in the rain. I thought she was dying and I couldn't think where else to bring her other than to you…"

Only for the pounding rain there would have been no noise in the room. Draco drank the rest of his tea in several gulps and then sat staring at his empty cup awkwardly. Snape drank his slower, savouring its hotness and sweet taste. He stared at Draco, taking in the pallid skin, pinched cheeks and bags under his eyes. It looked like being a Muggle wasn't suiting Draco any more than being a minion of the Dark Lord had done. He felt slight pity for the boy, somewhere far down in his stomach, and stood to leave.

Draco looked up. Snape stared down his nose a moment then said,

"You may sleep here by the fire tonight. Move a settee closer if you want, and if your mother isn't better tomorrow I'll set you up a guest room. There should be blankets at the back of the wine-closet. Goodnight."

Snape glided in his usual manner out the door, carrying the two expensive china tea-cups carefully in one hand. Draco didn't bother asking why (on earth) Snape had blankets at the back of his wine closet. He was just too tired to care. Gratefully, he dusted off the thickest shrug of the pile and wrapped it around himself. Seven and a half minutes later he wouldn't have been woken by a rampaging hippogriff, if one had cared to enter the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Epic **

**Chapter two**

0-0-0

Snape dozed fitfully in his bed. He was having nightmares full of empty glass vials, nightdresses and James Potter teasing him for wearing one. He woke in a cold sweat and shook his head disgustedly. The most ridiculous things could torment him at night. Snape threw off his quilt and shivered in the chilly air of his bedroom. The cold was welcome though, as it helped him to wake up and shake off the horrid images still reverberating around his head. He stood up, knowing that he would not be able to sleep again and prowled down the stairs with the idea of breakfast in his head.

He had just pulled a box of cereal from a cupboard and a jug of milk from the fridge and poured everything into a bowl when the door-bell clanged loudly. _Odd for Mundungus to call so early._

Snape walked briskly out into the hall and waved an arm at Malfoy who had surfaced, ruffled and scared looking, from the sitting room. Malfoy got the message and vanished back through the door.

Although Snape was sure that this time it would be Mundungus he checked just in case the Ministry had decided to call or something. It wasn't the ministry. Then again it wasn't Mundungus either. Snape honestly did not know what to think. Remus Lupin, Tonks and a baby stood shivering in the lashings of rain. He threw the door open.

Lupin, who had been craning his neck to look down the valley, spun around to face Snape.

"Severus" he said with a wheeze "Severus, I've come to ask for your assistance"

Snape stared at him impassively, and then gestured at them to come in with a jerk of his head. Lupin hustled Tonks and the baby in the door ahead of him and had one last glance over his shoulder before he too came in.

"I could have sworn that we were being watched as we walked through the village" he muttered to Snape.

"I wouldn't worry, it was probably Mundungus bringing my potion ingredients" _Though nothing would surprise me._

"No, I don't think so. Dung has a very distinctive smell and I would have noticed it. Besides, we met him in the pub earlier; he'll be up later. No, this was more a-a _feeling_ of being watched"

Lupin looked at Snape's still stony face and gave it up as a fruitless conversation. Here was a man who had buried all feelings he may ever have had, there was no point in pressing the matter.

0-0-0

The Lupins were surprised to meet Malfoy in the sitting room when they entered. Snape was glad to see that he had sharpened up a bit in the twenty-five seconds it took them to arrive in the room. He had also stashed the blankets away somewhere and was sitting casually on a sofa reading the closest book to hand, which unfortunately was a Muggle tea expertise book that Snape had ordered off the back of a cereal box. It rather ruined Malfoy's calm, collected, suave appearance. He nodded nonchalantly at them, as though it was nothing new to be woken up at half five in the morning while sleeping in a former Professors house. Nobody spoke as Snape took the Lupins' coats and hung them up in the hall. Remus Lupin suddenly stood and followed him out, leaving Molly and the baby with Malfoy.

It made a snorkelling noise as it slept and turned its head the other way. Malfoy dropped the tea-leaves book back on the table and watched it snoozing comfortably in its mother's arms. He took a guess that it was a girl (the pink rain coat was a dead giveaway) and asked her name.

"Mollie" said Tonks "Mollie after Molly Weasley."

They both knew that Malfoy had seen Molly and Arthur Weasley tortured to insanity. Tonks was playing mind games with Malfoy. Then Mollie snuffled and Malfoy excused himself under the pretext of checking on his mother.

As he left the room he overheard a large part of the conversation between Lupin and Snape.

"- Umbridge has stopped the sale of my full-moon potion. My stored supply is becoming less effective every month and I'm not sufficiently talented at potion brewing to make a new batch myself. Nyphadora wanted to for me but she could be accused of aiding and abetting a registered criminal and would lose her job at the ministry. Whereas you Severus-"

"-Whereas I have no job to lose, no family to support and no way to go except down. Yes, I see your logic _Remus_" Snape put heavy stress on Lupin's first name "but I have to ask, what's in it for me? I don't see any reason for me to aid and abet the same criminal whose friends, now all _regrettably_ deceased, made my school life hell.

Surely-" he sneered "-you weren't expecting me to assist out of the goodness of my heart?"

"Of course not. Payment isn't an issue. We'll pay whatever you ask for-"

Snape was quick to cut in "I'll brew it for 50 galleons and a year's supply of decent potion ingredients. You provide the necessary for your own brew and you understand that I live under restrictions and so our discussion here today must be treated with strictest confidence"

Lupin smiled. "Thank you Severus, this means a lot to us…" and they walked back into the sitting room where Malfoy heard no more.

He sat on the stairs for a while and thought. About a lot of things. Firstly his mother lying ill in bed; Snape said the potion would have aged her six or seven years. Did that mean she was actually six or seven years younger? But she was only in her thirties now! And Draco was eighteen. So subtract six from thirty-seven and then eighteen from than and you get…

_Thirteen._ He thought. _My mother was thirteen when I was born_. He felt sick. He'd known his father was a sick bastard but he hadn't thought him that disgusting. Of course, she would have looked nineteen… maybe he hadn't known. _Why did the custom-made bottle have a Malfoy crest on it if he hadn't?_

He didn't know. He didn't want to know. He forced his mind to move on.

Secondly, he knew that Tonks knew about his death-eater days. Was it common knowledge? He hadn't thought it was but he could be wrong, maybe the wizarding community had access to the former Death-eater list. He could be in serious danger. Then again, maybe it was only the Aurors who could view it. He hoped so.

Thirdly, since when was Snape willing to work for, of all people, a werewolf? Draco smelt something amiss. It was hardly coincidence that he arrived one day with his sick mother and four hours later a ministry employee and her disgraced husband turn up at the door. Perhaps it was a trap. Perhaps the ministry had gotten wind of Draco's arrival and had sent in spies to suss out the situation. He must say something to Snape about it.

Snape exited the sitting room and retrieved the still sopping wet rain-coats. Lupin thanked him, Tonks gave him a tight smile and the baby slept on, oblivious to the world around it. For a moment Draco envied her peaceful slumber. He hadn't slept that well since he was ten years old and knew nothing outside of Malfoy Mansion.

0-0-0

Snape closed the door behind them with an ominous thud and stalked back down the corridor. To get to the kitchen, where his breakfast was, he had to walk past the staircase and noticed Draco sitting at the top of it. Snape paused, unsure whether to say anything or not. "Breakfast" he said and continued down the hall.

Malfoy padded barefoot down the dusty carpet and walked into the kitchen. His clothes hung sadly over a pathetic little washing-line in the corner of the room. They were still wet, he'd have to live with the garish shirt and jeans a while longer. No matter. He could wait.

Snape glared at his cereal. It had soaked up all the milk and was a soggy mess lying limply in his bowl. Snape _hated_ soggy cereal. It was the one thing that made him feel really ill. Blood? No problem. Guts? So long as they weren't his own. Dead Flobber worms? Well, that was stretching the line a little but soggy cornflakes bit the bucket altogether. Controlling the urge to gag he scooped the ploppy mulch out of his bowl into the stove where it hissed and crackled nauseatingly. Malfoy tried not to laugh at Snape's look of revulsion.

"Professor" he said "I need to discuss something with you."

Snape didn't reply, but watched as his breakfast shrivelled and burnt its way into oblivion. While Malfoy relayed his thoughts to Snape, focussing mainly on Tonks knowledge of his death-eater days, Snape started to make another breakfast. He took a packet of back-rashers from the fridge and unhooked a large frying pan from the ceiling. He cleaned the pan, sprinkled oil on it and threw four or five rashers onto its hot surface. They sizzled and spat in the lull that followed Malfoy's speech. Snape realised Malfoy was waiting for him to say something.

"Do you like tomatoes?"

It was the deadpan seriousness with which Snape spoke that made the question "Do you like tomatoes?" sound so threatening.

Malfoy stared at him, "Sorry, what?"

"I asked if you like tomatoes Draco, I grow vegetables in my greenhouse and if you like tomatoes I'll go cut some down and fry them"

"No… thank you sir."

Snape's lips twitched in a manner that suggested he would rather have liked some tomatoes himself but he put out some rashers onto two plates. He had to wash the plates before he did this. He also had to wash the cutlery. If there was anything Snape hated more about the Suppression decree than self-defence being forbidden, it was the ministry's confiscation of his magical mess remover. It made washing up an almost unbearable task, which is why his dishes were stacked nearly a foot high in the sink.

Malfoy ate his bacon politely and sat, waiting for Snape to address his thoughts. However Snape did not appear to be in a rush to. He chewed the bacon pensively until it was almost cold and when finished got up to put the kettle on. Malfoy started to say something but Snape quickly hushed him. He'd heard a noise in the corridor.

He crept over to the kitchen door. The kettle-noise masked his already discreet footsteps and when he got there he flung the door open. Mundungus Fletcher fell into the room from the hall where, presumably, he had been eavesdropping.

He looked up from the floor and hastened to his feet.

"Severus!" Dung stood up and tried to act as though he hadn't just been caught listening in. "I brung them potion supplies you axed for and more, frum Lupin and Tonks who I met in the pub. Lovely lassie isn't she? Their baby I mean. All pink and white and sleepin'. It seems I just missed them. I saw them down the valley, then Tonks appearated off somewhere (I thought that was odd, what with apparition being banned an' all) but then about five minutes later she came back and they went into one of them old houses down the village. Presumably because it's raining so hard outside see…"

He looked from Snape to Malfoy and fidgeted uncomfortably with his coat sleeve. He clearly expected to be hexed, or tortured or hung by his ankles from the ceiling.

There was a long pause.

"Tea, Mundungus?" Snape suddenly offered nastily.

Mundungus looked terrified,

"-No! Thanks! I'd stay but I- I've an urgent matter of business abroad and I'll miss the port-key so..."

He hastily tugged several bulky cloth bags from his pocket and dropped them on the table. As he backed out the door he said,

"I was just checkin' to see if you was alone, Severus. I didn't mean no harm listening in like that. I'll be goin' now, bye so"

He scurried down the hall and left through the front door. Malfoy looked at Snape.

"How did he get in?" he asked

"Undoubtedly through the sitting room window, it has a weak latch and I don't think Mundungus has ever willingly used a door to enter people's houses"

Snape put their dishes in the sink along with the rest. He must remember to buy biscuits when he was out the next time…

"How long was he there for?" Malfoy asked.

"Long enough, boiled gold or Indian?"

It took Malfoy a moment to realise Snape was asking what type of tea he wanted. "Boiled gold?"

The right answer, judging by Snape's nod.

"Milk or sugar?"

"Sugar?"

A slight grimace. The wrong answer. Malfoy wondered when, exactly, Snape had started to care so much about tea.

Snape set two cups of yellowy liquid in front of them. Malfoy supped some and felt like his head was being ripped open and his back sliced in two and all his guts wringed at the same time. He'd clearly been poisoned.

It was _agony_. His cup went crashing to the floor and split a million ways. He fell off his stool and writhed on the tiles beside it. Everything was blurry and it felt like a million small hands were pulling apart him this way and that way making his limbs jerk and his body arch horribly.

Snape came into focus abruptly. "It's Veritaserum" he said simply "Some ingredients overripe I fear. I have the anti-dote here. The less you fight the quicker I can administer the cure. First you answer some questions for me. Are you Lucius Malfoy? Answer yes."

Malfoy jerked "I can't!" he gasped

"Good. Another question, answer truthfully and fully this time. Why are you here Draco?"

Malfoy struggled with the words "Mother… ill, can't doctor or Azkaban us…us"

"And what made you think Lupin wasn't genuinely asking for my help?"

"Came four… hours after…us…thought he was selling inf…ormation to ministry. Get back rights. Werewolves… D-Dark lord supporters." He let out a yell of pain and vomited his barely-digested bacon onto the floor. "Professor p-please"

Snape felt a twitch of guilt for using a bad potion on his guest. It had to be done though.

"One last question Draco. How many people did you turn over to the ministry for your own pardon?"

"One" Malfoy whimpered, and passed out.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Epic**

**Chapter three**

0-0-0

Malfoy woke on the cold dungeon floor feeling as though he had been dragged backwards over lots of large pointy rocks, and that they were still embedded in his skull and torso. He wasn't chained down but he couldn't move for the soreness of it. He had no idea where he was, or what he was doing there, or how he even got there but judging by the amount of pain he was in now, he hadn't come here willingly. He heard a door open far above him and footsteps echo down stone steps. Maybe he had fallen down them? It would explain why he was lying spread-eagled on the floor with no clothes on.

With no clothes on! He scrambled to his feet, ignoring his muscles screaming at him but was forced to lean heavily against a nearby wall as blood rushed to his head. The person rounded the corner and he saw it was Snape. Everything flooded back to him.

"Get away from me you weird freak!" Malfoy yelled. Snape looked shocked, possibly the first true emotion he had let show in years. He was carrying Malfoy's clothes, the ones he arrived wearing not Snape's father's clothes, and placed them carefully on the counter by the sink. Draco's underpants were lying on the top of the pile, neatly pressed.

"Draco, I-"

Malfoy grabbed a nearby iron ladle and pointed it warningly at Snape's head "Shut up and pass me the underpants" he said menacingly. Snape did so, careful to stay out of the iron ladle's reach. Malfoy pulled them on awkwardly with his un-occupied hand.

Snape watched, but not in _that_ way.

"Draco, I owe you an explanation, _listen!_" Malfoy had swung the ladle back up to Snape's head.

"Draco, let us clarify this: I am not gay, I was never gay and I will never be gay. I removed your clothes because you soiled them under the influence of my badly concocted Veritaserum potion, _just listen_"

He said this again because Draco looked very close to clobbering him with the ladle

"I owe you an apology Draco. When you spoke about your suspicions of Lupin I thought you were trying to shift the lime-light onto somebody else. I wasn't entirely sure that you weren't spying on me. I had to check. But that's not what I want to apologise for. ."

Draco was listening now, if only warily, so Snape continued

"I thought you were your father Draco. Not literally of course but in personality. You were always so similar to him at Hogwarts. There from came my reservations. As for the Veritaserum I can offer no explanation other than, if my suspicions were correct, asking you such questions outright would have served nothing except to put you on your guard. The potion itself was out of date. Again, I apologise.

Draco could you please put down the ladle now?"

Malfoy cautiously lowered his arm.

"I'm sorry" he said. "I jump to conclusions very fast sometimes and they're not always right"

Snape nodded begrudgingly, it wasn't a particularly far-fetched conclusion for Draco to jump to, after all the boy had woken sore, naked and lying sprawled in a compromising position on a dungeon floor and then Snape, a known sadist, had arrived down. It was quite logical, in a twisted sort of way.

As Draco dressed Snape checked a potion he had been brewing before Draco woke and he gave it a stir with the ladle. Its violet surface bubbled and spat out a horrible smell which Snape didn't seem to notice.

Draco wrinkled his nose,

"What's that?" he asked

"Lupin's potion in the making, it takes more than a week to gestate so I thought I'd better start it now, as the full moon is in ten days time."

The smell was starting to make him feel queasy, no mean feat considering he'd thrown up everything he'd eaten earlier.

"Snape, if it's okay I might go upstairs and get something to eat"

_He called me Snape…_

0-0-0

Malfoy sat at the table munching on the sandwich he'd made himself. He'd wanted something a little more substantial but Snape's cupboards were bare and his fridge almost empty apart from the lettuce and butter that Draco was now eating between two semi-stale slices of bread. Snape obviously hadn't been shopping in a while.

When he finished, Draco looked at the clock. It was nearly midday so he must have been out for five or six hours. A scary thought.

Suddenly, he yawned. Amazing. He'd been out cold for the whole morning and suddenly he was tired again. Standing and ignoring the ache in his back, legs and head in general Draco dropped his knife and plate back into the sink and staggered down to the sitting room. He retrieved his blanket from the liquor cabinet and fell onto the nearest sofa, sound asleep.

He was still lying there when Snape looked in eight hours later. _Good, he's asleep_. It wasn't until half one in the morning that Draco woke up with a start.

Somebody was scratching on the sitting room window. Very quietly, but a distinctive scritch-scritch sound all the same. Outside the wind was blowing up a gale so when the person opened the window a loud howl whistled around the room. They cursed quietly and moved quickly to close the window behind them. Silence ensued.

Draco shivered and stared at the dark ceiling, hoping they wouldn't notice him on the couch. He couldn't hear anything, not even the sound of somebody being really, really quiet and then a large figure leaned unexpectedly over him. He yelled loudly and fell backwards off the sofa in his haste to get away. Unfortunately he hit his tailbone on his way down and for the second time in as many days he found himself writhing on the floor. The figure vaulted over the back of the settee and clasped a hand over his mouth.

It was very dark outside so there was virtually no natural light in the room but he could have sworn the hand was familiar. It was female, probably. She started to speak in a low, gravelled voice,

"If you yell or scream when I take my hand away I will hex you into oblivion. Understand?"

Malfoy nodded and the person removed her hand. It was dark, and she had a hood up but she was so close that Malfoy could see an eye patch and a spider web of thick scars spreading out from under it. She smelt familiar too, if a little sweaty perhaps.

The woman stood up to light a candle on the fireplace with a small tinder-box she pulled from her pocket. The right side of her face, the side without scars, was facing him when the candle flickered out light and he gaped when he realised who it was.

"Granger?" he asked incredulously "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you Malfoy. Last I heard, you were handing over Malfoy Mansion to the Ministry and going to live somewhere remote, like Azkaban."

"I was pardoned" Malfoy said defensively.

"Really? On what grounds? Private donations to the minister perhaps?"

Malfoy flushed and looked down. It was true; Malfoy Mansion and a large chunk of the Malfoy fortune had gone to the ministry as part of his pardon. But Granger had twisted it to sound like bribery and corruption. As a matter of fact the mansion was being used as bait to try to lure Lucius Malfoy back to England. The money was being spent in recuperations for people who lost family members, homes and livelihoods to the Dark Lord and his followers. The Ministry pardoned Draco on different grounds altogether.

Hermione saw that she had hit a nerve and filed it for possible future use. However, she had an alternative reason for being there and was anxious to get to it.

"I came in search of Mundungus Fletcher. He's scheduled to drop off some potion ingredients to Snape tonight. Is he here yet?"

"Here and gone this morning Granger, you're way too late"

Hermione thumped her fist in anger against the fireplace.

"Dammit" she said "He stole some of my research papers and I need them back. The filthy, thieving scum! I knew there was something fishy about him stopping by but I didn't think he'd steal from _me_! I warned him, I warned him years ago about what I'd do if I ever caught him rifling through my stuff again but no, he goes and robs my PhD. And he took only that. Somebody must have put him up to it. I hope it wasn't some undercover ministry person, it'd be _just_ like Dung to sell something incriminating to an official. I can see the headlines already. 'The Late Harry Potter's friend Hermione Granger in tangle with Ministry" They'll use any excuse to get Harry's name back on the front page. I bet Rita Skeeter will write it, she's had it in for me since fourth year."

Hermione rubbed her good eye wearily with one hand. Malfoy realised she was exhausted.

"Ehh" he said when she didn't say anymore "Would you like a cup of tea?"

Through her fingers Hermione looked at him oddly.

"Yes" she said eventually "Yes, I think that would be nice"

0-0-0

He made them a cup each of a tea called "Classic Blend" that he figured you couldn't go wrong with. He also found some eggs at the back of the tea cupboard which, after testing in a jug of water to make sure they weren't gone off, he whipped up some scrambled eggs with. Hermione watched with interest as he poured in milk and sprinkled salt and pepper into the raw beaten egg and then poured the yellowy liquid onto a hot pan. There was no spatula to turn the egg with so he improvised a sort of pancake-flip instead. Hermione was impressed, despite herself.

"Where did you learn to cook?" she asked. Malfoy had not taken muggle studies at school.

Malfoy tinged pink again. "I took a muggle cookery class" he mumbled. Hermione took a swig of tea to hide her grin. Malfoy in a cooking class; now that must have been some sight.

She took another sup of tea and thought about its flavour.

"It could do with a biscuit" she mused aloud.

Malfoy tried some of his too, and nodded in agreement

"Rich Tea biscuits are the best" he said.

"MacVites" nodded Hermione.

"No, have to be home-brand. MacVites Rich Tea are round and don't fit the cup"

Hermione studied her cup pensively,

"You need a bigger cup then"

Malfoy laughed and then quickly flipped the eggs, embarrassed.

0-0-0

She'd never heard Malfoy laugh before. He had a pleasant laugh, not as bellyful as Ron's was and not nearly as nice as Harry's had been but agreeable enough.

He dished out the eggs onto two plates as Hermione looked at the mountain of plates in the sink.

"What does Snape do all day?" she asked. Malfoy saw her staring at the dishes and said "He doesn't do much as far as I know. He makes time for the finer things in life such as tea and spends the rest of his time in his greenhouse I think". Hermione gave him a look.

"You mean he brews potions and spends the rest of the time sleeping I supp-"

"-Well, well, what have we here?" A cold tone said from the door. Snape had arrived downstairs fully dressed and sneering. Hermione stood up to apologise for the intrusion but Snape cut across her. "Don't bother Ms.Granger, I've been expecting you"

Hermione seemed taken aback "You have?"

Snape sneered "Yes, I have. That imbecile Mundungus dropped something of yours on the table in his hurry to attend to his urgent matters of business."

He dropped a pile of papers onto the table and said "I recognised the infinitesimally small script and crude essay structure immediately as being yours"

He turned to Draco,

"Once you've read one of Ms.Granger's excruciatingly tedious essays you've read them all. Though I must say the theory on Muggle chemistry being the key to advancing our knowledge of potion-making was, perhaps, a little less dull than some of her older work. And the speculation that curses previously incurable by conventional methods can be countered by potions was almost interesting, if far-fetched"

Hermione looked as though she might argue, but merely laughed instead. It was Snape's turn to appear taken aback.

"Malfoy" he said "Your mother was awake briefly several hours ago. I've been sitting beside her since but she hasn't woken again and I'm getting tired. When you've eaten your eggs you can come relieve me. Ms.Granger, it would be foolish to try navigating your way back through the valley tonight; it's amazing something didn't eat you on your way in. I was going to arrange a guest room for you but I when I checked the beds it looked like Doxies had laid eggs in the mattresses so when you're done Malfoy will show you back to the sitting room whose window you came in and you may sleep there tonight, the blankets are in the wine cupboard. Goodnight"

Snape strode out of the room. Once he was gone Hermione turned to Malfoy and asked

"Why does he keep blankets in his drinks cabinet?"

"I don't know" Malfoy replied truthfully "I didn't ask"

As they ate Hermione asked Malfoy about his life as a muggle since the Dark Lord's downfall. Malfoy found her surprisingly easy to talk to. Moreover, she didn't seem to be laughing at his predicament. It was almost as though their seven years as rivals in Hogwarts had never happened. It was almost, (dare he admit it to even himself?) it was almost as though they were _friendly_.

The eggs were gone before he had a chance to ask her questions in return. They dumped the dishes into the sink though Hermione seemed reluctant to leave the mound of washing up just lying there (the old control freak part of her, it seemed, had not completely vanished).

She told Malfoy that it was fine and that she could make her own way back to the sitting room. Finding the blankets without much difficulty and arranging a make-shift bed Hermione lay down and tried to sleep until the sitting room door creaked open again. Malfoy poked his head around.

"Snape send this down" he said as he tossed a bundle of something over to her. She unfolded it and physically flinched. It was revolting. It was a nightdress but sometime between 1900 and the present day somebody had taken a scissors to it and hacked off its sleeves. They had also tried to tie-dye it a revolting pink with lime-green circles. The design, while artistic in itself, did not suit the high lace collar or elaborate meringue like designs on its body. Long, wide and flimsy at the same time it was an absolute utter mess. Snape's revenge perhaps.

Hermione used it as a pillow and slept fairly well, all things considered.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Epic**

**Chapter four**

0-0-0

"Mother?"

Narcissa twitched and turned over in her sleep. Her face, though still very pale, was no longer blue and oddly distorted as it had been when Draco found her. She looked much younger, lying there in an over-sized nightie.

_She is much younger,_ Draco reminded himself, _six years younger._

Narcissa's eyes twitched under their lids. If Draco had been interested in that sort of thing he would have recognised the twitch as a side effect of dreaming. As it was he mistook it to be a sign she was waking and grabbed her arm. Narcissa woke immediately and sat bolt upright with a loud shriek, clearly disorientated.

"It's all gone" she sobbed hysterically "Lucius will be so angry! It's all gone!"

"Hush Mother" Draco said soothingly "It doesn't matter that it's all gone. You don't need it anymore. Come now, drink this. Snape said you'd be thirsty"

Draco had meant this to be calming but unfortunately it had the opposite effect.

"SNAPE! Snape is a double crossing wench; a filthy half-breed, scum of the earth. Mudblood! Scoundrel! I'll kill him! I'LL KILL HIM"

"Mother please! You're delirious, just drink this and rest"

Narcissa suddenly stopped kicking and relaxed her posture,

"You're right of course Dobby, we mustn't concern ourselves overly. Draco is a fine boy, enough for us. We don't need more children, one is enough. Tell Lucius I want him will you I've got to –IT'S GONE, ALL GONE!"

At this Narcissa flung herself back on the bed sobbing bitterly and Draco froze, waiting for her to speak again. When she did it was in an acidic tone of voice,

"Just go James. I don't want to talk to y-you"

Draco remained motionless beside her bed until Narcissa looked up

"GO! I SAID GET OUT"

Draco hastened to his feet and left the room swiftly. Outside he walked into Snape and Hermione who looked serious.

"We heard the monitor go off" Hermione said quickly

"She'll sleep again soon" Snape offered in a peculiar, consolidating way "and Miss Granger here will be staying for a while to help brew Lupin's potion. We do, however, need to go to the supermarket. I thought we might take your car Draco as the shop will be considerably larger than usual."

Draco nodded dumbly and moved towards the stairs before he thought of something.

"But mother will be left alone then" he said.

"Lupin is downstairs" supplied Hermione "he said he'd keep an eye on things, we won't be long"

Downstairs Lupin nodded to them as they left. He had picked up Snape's "Become a Tea Connoisseur" book and was flicking through the pages with great interest. It seemed odd to Draco that Snape would suddenly leave the house in Lupin's hands, considering the immense distrust Snape had for him.

It took them a little under fifty minutes walking to reach Draco's car where he had abandoned it. It had felt a lot longer carrying Narcissa, Draco mused. It was then he realised that he had no key.

"I've lost my keys" he said, glancing around the road. Hermione pressed her face against the car window.

"No look, they're in the ignition" she replied and Draco felt a bit stupid.

0-0-0

They drove to Swansea and parked on a hill near Sainsburys. Draco put a pound in the nearest shopping trolley with a practised ease that would have fooled anybody, except Snape and Hermione, into thinking that he'd been using trolleys all his life.

Sainsburys' automatic doors unsettled Snape a little. He didn't understand how they worked. He had much preferred coming here as a boy when they had the kind of pushy door that everybody walked into because they thought it opened inwards when it didn't. As a young boy this had amused him to no end. Of course it hadn't been Sainsburys then. Or maybe it had, he couldn't remember. Snape noticed Draco and Hermione looking expectantly at him.

"We'll start in the milk aisle" he stated, regaining hid bearings. Draco nodded and Hermione led the way, Snape followed closely behind them pulling his robe in a little closer to him.

"Full-fat, low-fat, no-fat, Soya bean, strawberry or coffee flavoured, with added calcium, with added protein or "Kids" milk?" Hermione asked.

"Full fat" Snape said. Hermione put three two-litre bottles into the trolley.

"What about cholesterol reducing yoghurt drink?" she asked. Snape stared at her suspiciously, wondering whether she was mocking him. "No" he replied curtly, throwing in a lump of butter.

They moved to the next aisle which happened to be toiletries. Snape and Draco hastily rushed past the "women's supplies" and stared haughtily at the new-improved razors on display. Hermione discreetly slipped some anti-build-up-anti-dandruff two-in-one-Kangaroo-hoof-shampoo and a deodorant for herself into the basket and they moved on.

The next row was full of cleaning products. Snape seemed intent on skipping this aisle too but Hermione steered the trolley down it before he could protest.

"Your sink" she said "is a disgrace. You need to buy some detergent or other. My parents always use Fairy washing up liquid because it smells the best but it might be cheaper to buy home-brand"

"We use Fairy at home too" Draco piped up "well, I use it mostly. Mother doesn't wash-up very often..."

Hermione looked at Snape expectantly but he just scowled. Hermione put two large bottles into the trolley regardless. They also bought a mop, a bucket for the mop, carpet cleaner, several large scrubbing brushes and a whole pile of extra large tea-towels which had been part of a promotion and were now being sold off cheaply. They moved into the canned foods division.

Hermione was appalled by Snape's preferred choice of food. Even Draco didn't find it very appetising. Tinned veg, ready-made canned dinners and water pumped, farmed chicken were all products that Snape put into the trolley and Hermione promptly took out again.

"You cannot buy farmed chicken!" she exclaimed at one point "do you have any idea how those poor hens live their short, miserable lives? Cooped up in tiny cages, four or five hens all sharing the same, communal nest and all their feathers pecked out by each other as they fight over which goes first to eat the chemical-laced chicken feed allowed to them. It's appalling!"

"Miss Granger" Snape replied snottily "I can do as I please" and he put the chicken back in the basket. Yet no sooner had he turned his back than Hermione whipped it out again and replaced it with a slightly more expensive and marginally smaller in size free-range chicken. They had the same conversation by the eggs and once again Hermione put in the free-range ones when Snape wasn't looking.

Snape grew increasingly sour as this happened and eventually announced that he'd be in the tea aisle when they needed him to pay. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief when he was gone.

"Okay, vegetables next"

0-0-0

By the time they had finished Draco was struggling to push their trolley it was so heavy. Hermione had insisted that they buy into loads of special offers so the trolley was almost full with assorted root vegetables and fruits and about a gallon of water ("five five-litre bottles for just under ten quid!"). On top of that they had an industrial sized bag of flour and a really big pack of oatmeal and two large bars of Fair Trade sugar-free chocolate.

"How can chocolate be sugar free?" he had asked "I thought the whole point of chocolate was to be sweet and milky?"

Hermione had wrinkled her nose "The whole point of chocolate is to be chocolaty. People who eat sugary, milky chocolate aren't really eating chocolate; they're eating milk and sugar. You should see what that type of chocolate does to your teeth, it's disgusting. Chocolate can only really be considered chocolate when the cocoa beans are so strong they cling to the roof of your mouth. That's my opinion anyway."

Draco nodded meekly and began to feel that Snape was right to hide in the Tea-aisle. Next thing he knew they were queuing at a check-out.

"Should I fetch Snape?" he asked

"No" Hermione said

There was a short pause.

"How will we-"

"I'll pay for it by card" Hermione cut in.

Draco looked at the mountain of food and cleaning products in their basket

"Are you sure about that?" he asked

"Yes" Hermione said. As Draco looked like he had a lot more questions she sighed and said

"I get a good wage for my work"

"I thought you were a student?"

A flicker passed across Hermione's face, so slight he might not have noticed it if he hadn't been staring intently at her.

"I work part-time in a joke shop. Weasleys' wizarding wheezes, in the Cambridge branch. I do some product development, offer marketing points and check the books but mostly I stand behind the counter taking in money and saying "have a nice day" whilst smiling like a doofus. I can't stand it really…Fred and George are so nice to me but my wage is ridiculously high. I know they only pay me so much because they feel they should, it's like a widow's pension or something…"

They unpacked their trolley onto the moving belt-thing. Hermione suddenly snapped her fingers. "Paper" she said, and ran off to the top of the shop. Two minutes later she returned with several newspapers under her arm and one carried out in front of her.

"Draco" she said "I think you'd better take a look at this"

Draco took the proffered paper

"Pigeon's party goes to the dogs while Minister stands by?" he read dubiously.

"No, look again and look carefully this time"

Draco did as he was told and stared in astonishment as the paper headline changed in his mind's eye to read:

_Known Death Eater Malfoy spotted in Wales. Public asked to be on alert._

"They don't mean...I mean, do they mean, well is it…me or my father they're talking about?"

"Have a look" Hermione handed him the local Muggle newspaper. On its front page was a large photo of Lucius Malfoy and the title "Convict escapes to Wales" over it. Draco wasn't sure whether to be relieved or even more frightened. His father had come back…

0-0-0

Snape was sniffing a new brand of tea when a woman, mature in her years, sidled over to him.

"I have absolutely _nothing_ against cross-dressers" she said.

Snape looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

"I thought you might like to know that dearie, you must feel awful uncomfortable sometimes when _some folks_-" here she gave a particularly nasty stare to a passing woman, who admittedly was looking oddly at Snape "when some _common_ folks take it into their own hands to judge you when everybody knows that Jesus _himself_ wore a dress and had long hair. People around here would _do well to think on that_". Another long stare at a passer-by.

"Anyway dearie" she started to finish "I'm quite partial to trousers myself occasionally and what which equal rights and all that there's _no_ reason men can't go around looking like women when they want to. I thought I'd say that to you. Look, here comes a handsome young fellow. He'd look well in a dress wouldn't he? Well, I should go or I'll be late home and won't have dinner ready for Albert when he comes in. Bye now!"

She left. To say that Snape was taken aback would be an understatement. He was practically shell-shocked. Draco smiled at the lady as she passed him and then he walked straight over to Snape.

"Who was that?" he asked. Snape hushed him a moment until the woman had turned the corner (though not before she had looked over her shoulder, glanced at Draco and given Snape a very obvious knowing wink).

"Draco" Snape said "I think I need to buy some Muggle clothes for future shopping trips"

0-0-0

It occurred to Hermione that she'd never seen Snape in Muggle clothes before. They looked truly awful on him. It might have been the one-cut-suits-none effect. Or it could have been the expanding waistline which accompanies middle age. Or maybe it was just his complete lack of dress sense.

"Severus, you cannot wear that green shirt with sky blue corduroy trousers" she said

_In fact, it would be better if you wore neither the green shirt nor the trousers as they both look ridiculous,_ she thought to herself.

"You should try the black jeans again" she continued "they looked much better"

Eventually they bought the black jeans and the green shirt which they had compromised on over the cord trousers. Hermione also convinced Snape to buy a dark green coat which fell to the knees and was on sale for half price because it was missing a pocket button. It was also missing some pocket stitching because no sooner had they left the shop than the topmost pocket's lining fell off.

"No matter" Hermione said "we'll fix it when we get back to your house"

On their journey back Hermione and Draco told Snape about Lucius' arrival to the country. He listened carefully and but didn't seem surprised. Then out-of-the-blue he asked

"Who taught you Occlumency Miss Granger?"

"Self-taught" she frowned after a few moments' thought "I found that the state of mind necessary is not unlike the one for muggle meditation so I attended meditation classes and found a good book to learn the rest from. It proved useful a few times."

Involuntarily Hermione touched her eye-patch and traced some of the red welts on her left cheek.

"And what has you so wary that you leave a permanent shield up?"

Hermione's nose pinched in a displeased manner,

"If the Final Battle taught me nothing else it taught me never to be too careful. That's why I leave a shield up"

Snape left it at that but he wasn't convinced. The only person he ever knew to have held a long-term shield in place was himself. And even then, there was a difference in the calibre of it. Hermione's was a brick wall with no way over, around or through it. His own had been a crystal-clear looking glass, thin as ice and invisible to the outside mind. People looked into it and saw what they wanted to see and not necessarily what was there. He'd had to clear out his memory to make space for it. No, Hermione was holding something back.

0-0-0

Later Hermione said she'd like to take a shower if that was okay.

"I don't have a shower Miss Granger. This is an old house. It was built a mere four years after the popular invention of flushing toilets"

_Thank Merlin_ Hermione added to this mentally.

"It doesn't even have hot running water or a proper bath. I use a tin tub and several kettlefuls of hot water. You may use it later in the kitchen where we will not disturb you, if you so desire."

First off it was necessary to unpack the groceries and have tea as neither Draco nor Hermione had eaten since last night's eggs and Hermione was ravenous. Once Snape heard there was work to be done he traipsed off to the dungeons to check on Lupin's potion. _Come to think of it,_ Hermione thought, _where was Lupin?_ He was supposed to be minding the house.

"Severus, I'm going now. I'll check on the potion again soon" came the wheezy voice of Lupin from the hall. He had apparently been upstairs when they arrived.

"A moment Lupin, I need a word" Snape's voice called back.

In the kitchen Draco pulled a fresh sliced pan out of a bag.

"Will we be having sandwiches for lunch?" he asked

"Your choice" replied Hermione, who was in the process of removing a spider from the cupboard "You're cooking after all"


	5. Chapter 5

**The Epic**

**Chapter five**

0-0-0

Snape was right when he said it took a long time to fill the bath. At first Hermione thought a bucket of cold water for every two kettles of hot water would do but by the second bucket of water her bath was practically cold so she started again.

It was better, she figured eventually, to keep re-filling the kettle and also to use some of the newly cleaned saucepans to boil the water and only to add a bucket of cold water occasionally. The end result was gorgeously hot, especially after afternoon hike. It was quite a trek to the next habituated village and by the time they'd reached it she understood why Snape did not often go shopping anymore. Her legs hurt on their return but even as they thanked her for sinking into the hot, tin bath she heard someone's footsteps echo down the corridor from the sitting room.

"Hermione" Draco's voice echoed from the corridor "you forgot some things"

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I'm sure I can do without them Malfoy"

"Not without a towel you can't"

Bother. He was right. She also forgot to bring fresh clothes with her, though sleeping in fresh clothes seemed a little pointless.

"Malfoy, do you think you could bring me down the nightie I had last night as well?"

"Yeah, alright" Draco's footsteps echoed down the corridor again until he reached approximately the end of the staircase where he met Snape

"I washed that nightdress this morning Draco; it's in the bedroom up two flights of stairs, second door to the right."

Hermione settled back in the bath, soaking in the heat. Carefully and a little gingerly she peeled off her eye patch and let her head sink underwater. Outside the sky was quite dark and the moon was three-quarters visible. It would be time to add Lupin's hair soon. She realised that she hadn't actually been in Snape's potion dungeon yet despite remaining here to "learn" the potion…

All of a sudden something hit the window, a bat or something. Hermione looked up to see not a bat but a man smirking in at her. She tried to scream but the noise strangled in her throat. The man leered vulgarly and Hermione finally managed to choke out a screech. She then screamed really, really loudly.

Chaos ensued. Snape burst in the kitchen door, closely followed by Draco but the man disappeared before Snape could reach the back door to open it.

"Lucius" he breathed.

Hermione was badly shaken. Once Draco realised that the moment had passed and that Hermione was wearing nothing in the bath he handed her the towel and turned so that she could get out of the bath to cover herself.

Telling herself to cop on Hermione stood and wrapped the proffered towel around her while she stepped into the horrible nightdress. Then she draped the towel over her shoulders and snapped back on her eye-patch before turning to face the men.

"What happened, Miss Granger?" Snape asked. Her mental shields were still firmly in place which was quite surprising after a shock like that.

"I don't know. I heard a noise and then suddenly a man appeared. I didn't recognise his face, well I did but I don't recall… and then I couldn't scream, then I did scream and then you both came in and he vanished."

Draco spoke

"Do you think it was my father, Professor Snape?"

"Without a doubt"

Draco looked very troubled and said to Hermione "I don't think either of us should sleep in the sitting room tonight; it has a weak latch"

Snape strode over to the window and peered out.

"He will not return tonight. Besides, I made up two beds in Narcissa's room while you were out walking. I would have set both of you up in separate guest rooms but it's a raw night and I thought it would be better to share a room already warm. Miss Granger, I have some sleeping draught bottled in my dungeon, would you care to take some?"

Hermione nodded slowly, knowing it would be hard to sleep if she didn't. Snape moved out of the kitchen, leaving an awkward silence in his wake.

"Were you frightened?" Draco asked after a few moments.

"Yes" Hermione said and the silence resumed for a long while

"Would you like some tea?" Draco joked eventually

"You know Malfoy" Hermione said "I'd love a cup of-"

"Classic blend-"

"With biscuits-"

"In a large cup…" Malfoy finished with a smirk not unlike his father's.

As Draco filled the kettle and made quiet kettle-like whistling sounds (to encourage it to boil) Hermione felt she ought to be doing something. So she hunted out the bag of oats from a cupboard, poured some into a saucepan of milk and put the mix in the fridge.

"I'll make porridge in the morning," she said. "It's the only thing I can actually cook from scratch; I used to make it for myself. Neither of my parents were early risers…"

Snape came back into the kitchen. "It took a while to find it" he said with a sniff as he handed Hermione a blue, slightly blobby potion. It was a far sight from the brilliant azure water he used to brew in Hogwarts.

"It may be stronger than usual-" he added "-the contents have been allowed to ferment longer, giving it a gloopy appearance. I'd recommend a spoonful washed down with tea. Is that Classic Blend you're brewing Draco? I'll have some if it is, if not I won't bother."

Draco made a pot and carried it to the table. He poured out three cups and retrieved biscuits from the cup cupboard. Hermione pulled a cup near to her and cautiously uncorked the sleeping draught. It frothed up rather like a bottle of coke does. When she went to pour some it stuck heavily to the glass of the bottle before some oozed out. The spoon filled slowly and a drop eased over the edge where it hung, defying gravity and looking for all the world like a large, blue lump of snot. Hermione ignored the part of her brain telling her not to risk it and used her teeth to scrape the gunk into her mouth before swallowing hesitantly.

She began to cough as the gloop caught in her throat. Snape promptly leaned her head back and effectively poured down her throat. Hermione shuddered, gulped and fell backwards off the bench fast asleep. Luckily, for her, Snape's arm was behind her shoulder and he was able to ease her fall to the floor. It wasn't so lucky for Snape; he dragged his arm from under her back and looked up.

"Draco-" he said "-carry Miss Granger upstairs would you. She's a dead weight"

At least, Draco thought, Snape was not asking him to bury her in the back garden – for a brief moment he'd thought they might have to. They staggered upstairs carrying her and settled her into a bed. Draco said he'd hit the sack for the night as well. Snape nodded and closed the door on his way out.

Draco's shirt was half way over his head when Narcissa spoke;

"You were right Dobby, he wasn't angry"

Draco spun on his heel but his mother was still asleep. She must have been sleep-talking he supposed. Yet several minutes later, as he climbed between his sheets, she spoke again

"Never killed him, no-no, the rat did. The rat killed him. Bit his neck it did. Not you at all. Hah! Harry, killed by a rat."

Narcissa laughed mirthlessly, still asleep and then moaned

"Come back Lucius, I need to tell you something…"

She rolled over and muttered something into her pillow and then relaxed back into dreamless sleep as if nothing had happened.

0-0-0

In the morning Hermione woke fairly early feeling refreshed. She sprung from her bed and tiptoed over to the door, careful not to wake Draco or his mother who were still sound asleep. Snape sat fast asleep at the foot of the stairs so Hermione moved quietly towards the kitchen. Beside Snape lay the sleeping draught she had taken some of the previous evening. Presumably Snape and Draco had carried her upstairs and then Snape had come downstairs and fallen asleep in an armchair from the sitting room.

Hermione went into the kitchen and put the porridge on to heat slowly as it needed to be left cooking for at least a couple of hours. As she dropped the pot onto the stove a gentle tapping sounded at the window. A small speckled-brown owl scraped the pane with its talon. She recognised it immediately. Hermione looked around the kitchen, checked that Snape was still asleep in the corridor and then let the owl in. It lifted its leg to allow her take the unmarked letter and flew off swiftly, as it always did.

The letter read:

_This note is charmed to self-destruct in 35 seconds. You may or may not know that Lucius Malfoy was sighted in England on Monday. We need to discuss the new circumstances. Please go where the river flows underground, I'll wait all day if necessary._

_Yours truly,_

_Kingsley Shacklebolt._

Hermione hastily dropped the note into the sink where several seconds later it burned without producing flame. She washed its ash down the sink and glanced up at the clock. Twenty past seven. Outside dawn had barely broken and it seemed hardly likely that anybody would wake for an hour if not more. Hermione crept down to the sitting room and dressed quickly in fresh clothes. She also tied up her unruly hair and stuck her wand in her pocket, despite having not carried it for many months now. Then, with as little noise as possible, she left through the servants' entrance at the back of the house and walked swiftly over broken ground towards the riverbank.

0-0-0

It was the rich smell of porridge that woke Snape sometime later, or perhaps it was the slight click of a door opening and closing. He sat for a while, sniffing the air as he woke properly and then rubbed his temples carefully feeling his greasy hair as he did so. He needed to wash it really; perhaps he'd use some of that Kangaroo-hoof stuff Hermione left by the bath last night.

His neck hurt and he deeply regretted not owning slippers as his feet were freezing. Actually, he hadn't intended to sleep in the chair but he'd half expected Lucius to return. Snape prised his chilled legs from the chair and made his way down to the kitchen.

Hermione stirred the porridge. "Morning Severus," she said when she heard him come in. "Would you like some porridge?"

Snape didn't answer; he was too busy staring at the cat which lay stretched across Hermione's feet.

"Do you like him?" Hermione asked. "He was sleeping on the windowsill this morning"

Snape gave the cat a venomous look.

"Six days ago I brought that cat to the vet to have it put down. It was prowling around like a bad smell."

Hermione waited for more, which Snape shortly supplied.

"I dislike cats…immensely."

He sat down by the table until the cat got to its feet and prowled over to him. He then hastily stood up again.

"I shall wake Malfoy and see if he wants any porridge. After breakfast Miss Granger we shall add some of Lupin's hair to the potion and then I have some pruning to do in the greenhouse."

As it happened, there was no need for Snape to wake Draco because his mother had already done so.

"Get up" she'd hissed two minutes previously "Get up you lazy sod"

"Mother?" Draco sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed, dragging a weary hand over his face and noticing that he needed to shave.

"Draco, give me a hand out of this infernal bed then fetch my clothes" Narcissa snapped.

Swiftly Draco stood and helped Narcissa get out of the bed

"Pass me that hairbrush" she said and Draco obliged. He hadn't noticed a dressing table in the room before but now that he saw it he noticed its intricately carved roses and snakes patterns.

"Stop dawdling Draco, fetch my clothes"

Draco hurried from the room. As he rounded the corner he ran full force into Snape.

"She's better Snape, she's walking around and wants her clothes"

"Really?" Snape seemed a little thrown. He brushed past Draco and swept into the bedroom, as always closing the door behind him. Draco considered going back in but shook his head, better to find his mother's clothes and then go back.

0-0-0

"Narcissa?"

Snape studied the back of the woman's head as she brushed three nights' worth of knots out of her hair. In fact, there weren't many knots; it looked unusually sleek and not like it hadn't been brushed for ages.

She looked up and stared at Snape in the dressing table mirror.

"Yes Severus?"

Snape frowned and then spoke,

"You seem much better today" he observed.

Narcissa's lip curled in derision

"Very astute Severus, very astute of you indeed"

Something about her curling lip struck Snape as being… off, somehow. She finished with the brush and laid it down on the table before focussing her entire attention on Snape's reflection in the mirror. There was a wicked gleam in her eye as though she was playing a joke on an old friend. Their eyes locked in a relentless stare until, almost in-perceivably, hers flickered over the wardrobe. Snape was suddenly struck with a suspicion.

In two swift movements he had locked the bedroom door; in another two he had wrenched the wardrobe doors open.

An exact duplicate of Narcissa Malfoy lay lifelessly in the otherwise empty wardrobe. She wasn't wearing her nightdress (how could she be when the other Narcissa was wearing it) but a long cloak, boots and other articles of clothing were thrown in on top of her. Snape checked her pulse, it was still there, slow and rhythmic but that was because she was sleeping deeply.

He turned to the Narcissa by the mirror.

"You were meant to go to the village for the night." Snape snarled accusingly "That was our agreement, why did you renege on it?"

"Why Severus, I had no intention on going back to the village. Why should I? My choice was either to sleep in a mouldy shack with all kinds of insect life crawling over me or to come back here and sleep in a decent bed."

Narcissa, or more accurately the person masquerading as Narcissa, swivelled on the dressing-table chair to look Snape directly in the face.

"It was all very well pretending to be Lupin for a couple of hours while you went shopping but I had no intention of prowling around in werewolf skin for longer than _absolutely_ necessary. So, when you were out shopping I came up with a simply marvellous arrangement of my own; a real stroke of genius. Almost worthy of the Dark Lord himself I think. Would you like me to share it with you?"

Just then Draco rattled the door-knob until he realised it was locked from the inside.

"Snape!" he yelled. "Open the door Snape!"

Snape closed over the wardrobe and moved to the door.

"We're not finished here" he said quietly over his shoulder before he unlocked the door.

Draco burst into the room and looked from Snape to what he thought was his mother.

"Are you all right Mother?"

"Put the clothes on the bed Draco and get out"

Draco's brow creased but he did as he was told. Once Snape was sure the boy was gone he closed and locked the door once more. "Narcissa" continued.

"You see, as Narcissa lay here in a superbly comfortable bed (which she was quite unable to appreciate) and as I was to spend the night in squalor yet again I thought I would – how shall I say this – make the most of the facilities I suppose. In my Lupin-skin I planned to come upstairs, take a few hairs from Narcissa, leave the house when you came back and hide out in the greenhouse until night fell. Then I would steal back into the house – as Narcissa – come back upstairs, lock the bedroom door and sleep in a comfortable bed for the night. As my true self obviously."

"Your true self is a rat Lucius" Snape said but Lucius Malfoy continued as though he hadn't heard anything.

"Of course, when I came upstairs I didn't expect to find Narcissa awake and lucid. We had a small chat and then I found a bottle of sleeping draught in your dungeon with which to put her sleep again."

_That,_ thought Snape,_ would explain why I found it up here last night._

"Nevertheless, my plan was undaunted. I'd still sleep here in the dark. In the morning I'd disguise myself as Narcissa and leave somehow, I hadn't quite got that part sorted in my head when you suddenly came back from the shops. Anyway, it was an arduous plan, and not guaranteed to work but you gave me such an easier time of it:

"Come back tonight," you said. "Give Mud-blood Granger a scare when she's in the bath, I want to know what she's up to." Tell me Snape, what _is_ she up to?"

Snape grimaced "I don't know yet" he said.

"Really?" Narcissa's features twisted into Lucius' cruel smile "How odd. I thought you'd be able to tell me why she left the house at half seven this morning and walked up the valley towards the old mine shaft …"

He waited for Snape to pass comment but Snape remained impassive

"Oh well, I was just after scaring the mud-blood wasn't I? So, as all of you panicked in the kitchen I came in through the sitting room window – you need to get that fixed Severus old chap, quite unsafe – and I ran upstairs. It gave me quite a turn to see the extra beds in here. I'll admit it fairly messed up my plan. I ended up sleeping in the wardrobe which was both uncouth and uncomfortable.

"Then this morning Miss Granger woke me as she left, I took some more of that Polyjuice you gave me and switched places with my wife. So, here I am, and nothing to it. Except, of course, that we'll have to hide Narcissa somewhere and keep her sedated until I can make a break for it."

Snape's next words were long-suffering, "Why, Lucius, didn't you just go back to the village when you realised that you wouldn't be able to sleep in a bed?"

Narcissa's comely mouth smirked patronisingly

"Because, Severus, the village is swarming with ministry officials and has been since shortly after I arrived on Tuesday."

Lucius let this sink in, enjoying the almost comical effect it had on Snape

"I thought-"

"You thought Lupin genuinely needed potion? No chance. Tonks was trying to get into your house. You disabled the ministry's last spy and Tonks was to be the replacement from what I gathered. They didn't expect to find Draco and Narcissa here although both had been reported missing some hours previously. Tonks disappearated to inform the ministry of her find and within two hours they had a fully functioning stake-out in the house next door to mine. It was rather amusing to listen to as they seemed to think I'd turn up."

"Which you did," Snape pointed out scathingly. "Before you cut in I was about to say I thought you arrived on Wednesday. Why didn't you tell me about the ministry being here when you first arrived up Wednesday evening?"

Lucius did not like Snape's tone of voice.

"Less of the scowling Severus, I've told you now haven't I. And now you can see why you have to help me get out, preferably with a lot of money, to start a new life."

"No, why would I do anything as absurdly dangerous as that?"

Narcissa's eyes glittered maliciously.

"Because, Severus, you're a marked man. They've broken your little potions racket. From what I heard it's only a matter of time before they throw you into Azkaban. But their waiting for me to turn up first so, listen carefully, I have another plan…"


End file.
